Current-responsive indicating and recording instrument



Dec. 26, 1933. J PFAFFENBERGER 1,941,319

CURRENT RESPONSIVE INDICATING AND RECORDING INSTRUMENT Filed NOV. 11, 1932 mg. I.

. Inventor: Joachim FFaFFenbevger;

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Patented Dec. 26, 1933 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CUBBENT-RESPONSIVE INDIGATING AND RECORDING INSTRUDIENT Joachim Pfaflenberger, Berlin-Marlendorl, Germany, assignor to General Electric (Jompany, a corporation of New York Application November 11, 1932, Serial No. 642,307, and in Germany November 11, 1931 12 Claims. (Cl. 17195) My invention relates to current-responsive inbrackets 12. The tension of the conductors 14 dicating and recording instruments and conand 15 may be adjusted by means of the nuts cerns particularly devices by means of which a 17 engaging the threaded portion of pins 16. two-dimensional indication or record may be ob- The conductors 14 and 15 are mechanically contained. nected where they cross, but preferably elec- It is an object of my invention to produce a trically insulated. This may be done many sturdy, highly sensitive, easily adjustable device suitable manner, such as by means of a globule which is suitable for high frequency work. Other of insulating cement or by passing the conductors and further objects will become apparent as the through an insulating member 20. A mirror 21' 1o description proceeds. is attached to the conductors 14 and 15 at their In accordance with my invention in its preintersection or to the member 20. The permaferred form, I provide a pair of straight conducnent magnets 13 are provided with raised V- tors placed at right angles mechanically connectshaped poles 22, 23, 24, and 25, lying in'the four ed at their mid-points but electrically insulated. quadrants formed by the intersecting conductors A deflecting mirror cooperating with a source 14 and 15. The arrangement is such that like of light to produce an indicating beam is atpoles areinopposite quadrants. tached to the conductors at their intersection. Each magnet pole is tapered to an edge to con- Suitable means are provided for subjecting each form to the quadrant in which it is placed. Pretof the conductors to transverse magnetic fields erably the angles of the pole tips are made less whichhave opposite polarity on opposite sides than ninety degrees in order that the minimum of the mirror. The use of single straight conairgaps will occur at the extreme tips of the poles, ductors facilitates the adjustment of the instruthereby making the flux densities in the airgaps ment since there is no necessity for providing greatest at the pole tips and increasing the posmeans to equalize the tension of the conductors sible tilt of mirror 21 by bringing the points at 25 as is the case in ordinary bifilar instruments. which the greatest forces and deflections are apso The straight conductors are connected so as to plied to the conductors 14 and 15 as close to the respond to different quantities to be measured mirror 21 as possible. I have found that good or recorded so that a two-dimensional indication results may be obtained by making the angles is obtained and the instantaneous relationship of the pole tips to BOdegrees.

36 between any two quantities may be indicated or A source of light 26 and a focusing device 2'7 5 recorded. The features of my invention which cooperating with the mirror 21 are provided to I believe to be novel and patentable will be produce an indicating beam impinging on a pointed out in the claims appended hereto. screen 28 which may be, if desired, 01' translu- A more complete understanding of my invencent material when the device is used for visual 35 tion itself, however, may be obtained by referindications, or of photo-sensitive material when ring to the following description in connection the device is used for producing records. It will with the accompanying drawing in which Fig. be understood that a suitable light-proof enclo- 1 is a plan view of one embodiment of my invensure and means for. shielding the screen 28 from tion; Fig. 2 is an end view partly in section of the direct rays of the light source 26 will be emthe arrangement shown in Fig. 1; Fig. 3 i1lusployed, but for the sake of clarity such means trates the operation 01' the deflecting element are omitted in the drawing.

shown in Fig. 2; and Fig. 4 is a schematic dia- The operation of my device is as follows: In gram in perspective illustrating the operation response to a current flowing in conductor 15, for

of my invention. example, the portion 29 of the conductor 15 ad- Referring now more in detail to the drawing jacent the tips of poles 22 and 23 will be caused in. which like reference characters refer to like to deflect to the left (Fig. 3) whereas the portion parts throughout, the apparatus may be mounted 30 on the opposite side of the mirror 21 and adin any suitable manner, such as on a base 11. jacent the poles 24 and 25 will be caused to de- To the base 11 are attached the conductor supflect to the right since the magnetic flux flows in 50 porting brackets 12 and a pair of permanent the opposite direction between poles 24 and 25. magnets 13, but it will be understood that any By making the flux produced by the several poles desired arrangement of permanent or electroas concentrated as possible and by bringing the magnets may also be employed Conductors 14 maximum flux density as close to the intersection and 15 are attached in any suitable manner to of the conductors as possible, or by causing the 55 threaded pins 16 inserted in openings in the reversal of flux on opposite sides oi. the mirrorto occur as abruptly as possible, the m'aximum tilt of the mirror will be produced for a given deflection of the conductor and consequently for a given current and magnetic field strength. It will be understood that the reaction between current flowing in conductor 14 and the fields pro duced by magnets 13 will cause a similar tilting of the mirror 21 but in a plane perpendicular to the tilting caused by conductor 15. Referring to Fig. 4 it will be seen that the effect of current variations in conductor 15 will be to cause the light spot 31 to move vertically along screen 28 and the effect of current variations in conductor 14 will be to causelight spot 31 to move horizontally along screen 28. Consequently, when both conductors 14 and 15 are energized, the path of the light spot will trace a curve representing the relationship between the values of current in conductors l4 and 15. If desired, the screen 28 may be vertically and horizontally ruled in order to form a two-dimensional scale. Apparatus of the type disclosed is of value where it is desired to obtain an indication or record of the relationship between two quantities varying with relatively high frequency and which may be capable of supplying relatively little power to the measuring instrument. For example, hysteresis curves may be traced by connecting the conductors so that the current in one is responsive to the variations in flux in a test sample, and the current in the other conductor is responsive to variations in magneto-motive force or magnetizing current. Obviously, curves may be obtained of relationships between current and voltage or between any other desired quantities. One of the. conductors may also be employed to provide a time axis by causing a current to flow therein which varies continuously with time.

Such timing currents may be produced in any desired manner such as, for example, by apparatus disclosed in U. S. patents to Bedell, 1,707,594, Kipping, 1,592,274, or Riidenberg, 1,695,719.

Under the provisions of the patent statutes 1 have described the principle of operation of my invention, together with the apparatus which I now consider to represent the best embodiment thereof, but I desire to have it understood that the apparatus shown is only illustrative and that the invention may be carried out by other means.

What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. A quadrantal oscillograph comprising a pair of crossed straight conductors connected in difierent circuits and carrying a mirror at their intersection, a source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, magnetic field producing means having poles in each of the quadrants formed by said crossed conductors, like poles being in opposite quadrants, thereby causing said beam to be deflected in a given plane in response to current variations in one of said circuits, and in a transverse plane in response to current variations in the other of said circuits.

2. A current-responsive instrument comprising a pair of crossed straight conductors connected in different circuits and insulated from each other but mechanically connected and carrying a mirror at their intersection, a source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, magnetic field producing means having poles in each of the quadrants formed by said crossed conductors, like poles being in opposite quadrants, thereby causing said beam to be deflected in a given plane in response to current variations in one of said circuits, and in a transverse plane in response to current variations in the other of said circuits.

3. Av quadrantal recording instrument comprising a pair of crossed straight conductors connected in different circuits and carrying a mirror at their intersection, a source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, a sheet of photographic material cooperating with said indicating beam, magnetic field producing means having poles in each of the quadrants formed by said crossed conductors, like poles being in opposite quadrants, thereby producing a two-dimensional record upon said photographic sheet in response to current variations in said circuits, each of which correspond to one of the dimensions of said record.

4. A two-dimensional electrical indicating instrument comprising a pair of crossed straight conductors connected in different circuits and carrying a mirror at their intersection, a source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, a screen cooperating with said beam, magnetic field producing means having poles in each of the quadrants formed by said crossed conductors, like poles being in opposite quadrants, thereby causing said beam to be deflected in a given plane in response to current variations in one of said circuits, and in a transverse plane in response to current variations in the other of said circuits.

5. A current-responsive instrument comprising a pair of crossed straight conductors connected in different circuits and carrying a mirror at their intersection, a source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, magnetic field producing means having V-shaped poles in each of the quadrants formed by said crossed conductors, the planes forming the sides of the V-shaped portions of said poles being substantially perpendicular to the plane along which said crossed conductors normally lie, like poles being in opposite quadrants, thereby causing said beam to be deflected in a given plane in response to current variations in one of said circuits and in a transverse plane in response to current variations in the other of said circuits.

6. A current-responsive instrument comprising a pair of crossed straight conductors connected in different circuits and carrying a mirror at their intersection,- a source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, magnetic field producing means having V- shaped poles in each of the quadrants formed by said crossed conductors, like poles being in opposite quadrants, thereby causing said beam to be deflected in a given plane in response to current variations in one of said circuits and in a transverse plane in response to current variations in the other of said circuits, the sides of said V-shaped poles making dihedral angles of less than 90 degrees for the purpose or increasing the field strength at the extreme tips of the poles.

7. A current-responsive instrument comprising a pair of crossed straight conductors connected in different circuits and carrying a mirror at their intersection, a source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, magnetic field producing means having V-shaped poles in each of the quadrants formed by said crossed conductors, like poles being in opposite quadrants, thereby causing said beam to be deflected in a given plane in response to current variations in one of said circuits, and in a transverse plane in response to current variations in the other of said circuits, the sides or the V- shaped portions of said poles making angles lying between '75 and 80 degrees for the purpose or causing a relatively abrupt reversal in magnitization un opposite sides of said mirror.

8. A current-responsive instrument comprising a pair of conductors situated substantially at right angles to each other connected in diiferent circuits and mechanically connected substantially midway their ends but electrically insulated and carrying a mirror at their intersection, a source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, means for producing magnetic fields. transverse to each of said wires and having opposite polarities on opposite sides of said mirror, thereby causing said beam to be deflected in a given plane in response to current variations in one of said circuits and in a transverse plane in response to current variations in the other of said circuits.

9. A current-responsive instrument comprising a straight conductor carrying a mirror, at source of light cooperating with said mirror to produce an indicating beam, means for producing a magnetic field transverse to said conductor and having a given polarity on one side 01' said mirror and the opposite polarity on the other side of said mirror for the purpose of causing said wire to move in opposite directions on opposite sides of rality of electrical conductors so supported as to permit transverse movement, means for subjecting said conductors to transverse magnetic fields, a mirror supported so as to be subject to the joint movement of said conductors in said fields, a stationary light source, and means for receiving a beam of light reflected by said mirror from said light source. 3

11. A light-beam instrument comprising a pair of electrical conductors supported to extend in different directions, means for subjecting each of said conductors to a transverse magnetic field, a mirror supported so as to be subject to the joint movement of said conductors in said field, a stationary light source, and means for receiving a beam of light reflected by said mirror from said light source.

12. A light-beam instrument comprising means for producing a magnetic field, a plurality of electrical. conductors supported to extend through saidfleld in difierent directions, a mirror supported so as to be subject to the joint movement of said conductors in said field,'a stationary light source, and means for receiving a beam or light reflected by said mirror from said light source.

JOACI-HJVI P'FAF'FENBERGER. 

